Pandora
by flames-and-fics
Summary: Everything comes with a price. When Reborn seeks out the answers to his memories in Sawada Tsunayoshi and his Family, he learns the cruelty of equivalent exchange - and just how prepared he is for the truth.
**Pandora**

He saw him many times before.

From inside the Giglio Nero base, Reborn watched as the brunet talked to Yuni with a familiarity cultivated only from many years of friendship that prevailed even through the common strife of the mafia. Reborn didn't know him personally, even if the other man often came up to him for small talk when he waited for Yuni, and while he didn't know who exactly the brunet was, Reborn thought him tolerable enough that he didn't mind his company on the lazy days where he lounged around the base. Most of the time, their conversations only lasted bare minutes, a few exchange of pleasant chatter, before they had to depart either for a meeting or for a job.

Coming and going as he was, Reborn only spared him a moment's glance most days since he wasn't a threat - not to the Family, anyway - and he didn't see the need to keep an eye one someone who his Boss obviously trusted and cared for, and was mutually trusted and taken care of in return. Yet, sometimes, he'd wonder who the brunet was, or why he was so important to Yuni, or why, along with another white-haired male, they'd spend hours upon hours trapped inside Yuni's office speaking in low voices Reborn couldn't make out through the door. It happened enough for him to feel suspicious when all three showed up, but infrequently to the point where Yuni could successfully discourage him from carrying out any sort of investigation. He didn't like not knowing, and Yuni knew that as well as she knew each member of her small, prominent Family, but still she refrained from telling him everything.

"It's only a discussion among friends," she would tell him, a simple smile on her lips. Simple enough to be normal, simple enough to brush away any concerns, but not genuine enough to convince him of her words. Reborn knew, in the deepest crevices of his mind, that she was lying through her teeth.

Never had he forced an answer out of her, though, because while she wasn't giving him the entire truth, she wasn't outright lying to him either. More lenient than he wanted to be, Reborn often left it like that - a pile of half-truths upon half-lies, waiting for an inconsistency, a break in the pattern, so that he could interrogate her further. He had the patience to wait, and he could sit and observe each little bit of information Yuni offered to him with that smile on her face.

It was a smile that both calmed and irritated him at the same time.

"Hey," a smooth, cheery voice came from his right. Reborn glanced over, spotting the brunet stride up to him with a wave and an open grin, and wondered what he was here for this time. Of the two males that often came to visit Yuni, the white-haired male visited the most, though they both came enough times in the week to practically be considered part of the Family.

Reborn tipped his hat in greeting. "Chaos. Another meeting with the Boss?"

"No, just Yuni this time."

"I see."

The brunet had the peculiar trait of calling Yuni "Boss" or "Yuni" like they were two separate people for two separate situations. And, Reborn thought with a thoughtful tilt of his lips, perhaps they were. Yuni the woman and Yuni the Boss were, almost, different entities existing inside the same body, and Reborn had more than once picked out the small differences between "Yuni" and "Boss" on some occasion. Either way, Yuni would be Yuni in his eyes no matter what position she was in. The differences he picked out were as insignificant as the dust on his clothes. They didn't matter.

"So, what have you been up to?" The brunet continued, coming up to lean on the same wall a comfortable distance away. He glanced at him for less than a second before turning his eyes to out the window between them, brown eyes a mellow flame in the light of the sun. Reborn felt a tinge curious about what made the friendly, kind man beside him appear so sullen in broad daylight, but refrained from questioning.

"Nothing," Reborn said. He crossed his arms and faced the opposite wall, keeping the brim of his fedora low over his eyes. He'd give the other man a moment of peace, of temporary respite, while he looked the other way. "The only jobs available are simple enough for infants to do."

For some reason, the brunet chuckled, a faint, quiet sound that brushed against his ears for the barest of seconds before fading altogether. "For infants, huh?" His voice, tinged with nostalgia he didn't have the privy of understanding, made his lips press together.

"For infants," Reborn confirmed.

When the other man didn't reply, Reborn glanced over to see mellow eyes colored a flame's orange look at him with all the world's regret and sadness. It made his chest squeeze, his throat clench, and jaw tighten.

"Wha- "

"Tsuna-san!"

Reborn stopped and shattered the words waiting in his throat, destroying them before he could get another sound out. Down the hall, Yuni came up to them with quick, purposeful strides that exuded complete confidence and power, but a warm smile that welcomed any and all persons who happened to come before her. The brunet pulled his lips into a smile, a simple smile, and turned to the Giglio Nero Boss. The flame in his eyes extinguished themselves, leaving gentle brown in their wake.

"Yuni," he said as the Boss came to a stop before them. "It's good to see you. How have you been holding up?"

"I've had no problems," Yuni said. She clasped her hands behind her back, her smile morphing into a grin that made her look years younger, and Reborn wondered why Yuni acted like the child between the two even though the brunet looked a few years younger than her. "How has your end been faring, Tsuna-san? Is your Family still as energetic as ever?"

"Of course, though I don't think energetic is the right term for it," Tsuna said, his voice turning sheepish as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I wish it was as quiet as it is here; there's always something happening that either needs medical attention or an interloper to diffuse the battle, and as much as I love them I can't be both."

Yuni laughed, a bright sound that made goosebumps rise on Reborn's arms, and he felt himself frown. He glanced at his watch. "Yuni, I'll excuse myself he- "

"Nonsense, Reborn," Yuni cut in. Hey eyes met his, a familiar shadow of knowledge, of awareness, tinting the color of her eyes into something dark, and Reborn abandoned all thoughts of what he planned to do to listen. The brunet - Tsuna, he corrected - glanced between the two with a mixture of confusion and apprehension flitting across his features.

"Yuni- "

"Do you want to know, Reborn?" Yuni interrupted. Her eyes remained locked with Reborn's, waiting, anticipating, knowing, his answer. She knew her Family like she knew how to breathe, and she knew Reborn even better. His answer was obvious.

"Of course." Reborn hated not knowing, after all, and years of waiting and playing his game had made him fancy other methods to gather his information. Yuni was just offering him a way to channel his lassitude into something productive as well.

She smiled.

"Then you are to help Tsuna-san for as long as you are content. I'm sure the knowledge you've been searching for will reveal itself there."

"Wait- Yuni!" Tsuna interjected, his expression breaking. He took a step forward only to be knocked down by Reborn's steady voice ending all argument.

"So long as it isn't tedious, I'll do it."

Tsuna whirled around to him. "It's extremely tedious, Reborn, you wouldn't want to constantly subject yourself to my Family. They're bad enough on good days, but I'm doing fine by myself. You really don't need to do this." Shoulders tense and lips firm as they pressed into a neutral line, Tsuna looked the part of a person who didn't want someone intruding in his Family; but the way his voice, so normally calm and soothing, sounded harried and strained and desperate, like Reborn's agreement would be equivalent to a physical beating, cracked the facade.

Glancing over to Yuni, who looked both pained and sympathetic as she regarded Tsuna with her shadowed, knowledgeable eyes, Reborn felt his lips pull thin. How he hated not knowing, how he despised information kept from him, how he loathed lagging behind the rest as they whispered secrets of a time he couldn't remember, of things he was unable to understand. When Yuni turned those eyes back to him, waiting, silent, for his answer, Reborn felt a flame spark to life in his chest that urged him to speak.

"I don't care," Reborn said. His reply was light, indifferent, and all the hard questions and silent promises were hidden beneath its apathy. Tsuna tensed, a sparkle of gratitude brightened Yuni's eyes, and Reborn felt an incomprehensible sense of rightness curl in his chest. "I'm the greatest hitman the world has to offer. A couple of overgrown children aren't going to best me."

"There," Yuni said with a pleased smile before Tsuna could intervene. Her jovial tone couldn't quite cover up her obvious relief no matter how wide she made her grin, and Reborn noticed how the brunet kept his eyes down and away - from Reborn. Yuni clasped Tsuna by the shoulder and urged his eyes to meet her own. "Reborn agreed to it, Tsuna-san, so please accept this. It's for the best, for both of you."

Tsuna glanced over at Reborn, then away. "It'd be better if…" He trailed off, a pained expression twisting his features into something unpleasant, but he clenched his hands into fists and stared hard into Yuni's eyes. "I'm fine with how things are now. You shouldn't drag Reborn into something that doesn't need fixing."

For some reason outside of his immediate understanding, Reborn spoke up before Yuni could, the snark in his voice apparent even though he knew Tsuna was his superior in terms of hierarchy just through his connection with Yuni. "I'm not being dragged," he said, level but sharp with the spearhead of cold, hard fact. "I'm accepting a request from my Boss, of my own free will, so quit complaining and get on with it, Tsuna."

He crushed the brim of his fedora under the numb grip of his fingers as he tugged it over his eyes, but he didn't miss the way Yuni looked at him in momentary surprise at his blatant order, or how Tsuna stared at him with wide eyes that shimmered with both anguish and desperation. Digging his teeth into the inside of his cheek, Tsuna put a hand over his telling eyes and mechanically turned away, shoulders slumped with something Reborn wasn't privy to. "Come, if you want to know so badly," he said, hollow and faint as he trudged away, "but keep in mind that what you're searching for isn't as beautiful as you think it is."

"I'm prepared for that."

There was a brittle, broken, bitter sound. Reborn, had he not seen the sardonic tilt of lips as Tsuna looked back at him, would've thought it a sob.

* * *

 **A/N:** After much persuasion from mellow-runaway, some fics on Tumblr will slowly be making their way onto here. I don't know how fast they'll be coming up, but they'll get here eventually. On another note, I also don't know how often this fic - or any of the potential multi-chaptered fics I have, really - will be updated. They'll come when they come, is all I can really say.

Thanks for reading!


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